From time to time I like to highlight on my blog, for the few who read it regularly, ‘things’ which I think are particularly cool. Today I’m highlighting something that I think is particularly cool. But read on to find out more! Hi, Tim, who are you and what do you do?   Hi Tom, I’m a writer, blogger, University Manager, and pastor. I’m also studying part time for an MA by Research in Theology and as of right now am one of the founding editors of Eucharisma. Which is perhaps more strings than I have bows! I’m married to Helen and we live in South Birmingham.   Where are you at ..read more

Disclosure – I was sent a copy of this book for review. I hope that didn’t cloud my thoughts. Cards on the table – my wife and I spent 18 months or so as part of HTB, she worked for Alpha for almost three years, we attended two Focus weeks (one of which, notably, had a storm, and I was very grateful to Nicky Gumbel for helping me cart our stuff from a tent to a chalet – the first megachurch leader I’ve encountered in the rain doing something practical), and we led an Alpha table that became a housegroup. So I’m not coming to this history book neutrally – and that is ok, based on Atherstone’s ..read more

I was sent a pre-publication copy of this book to review – having not seen the final text, my review may have some redundancy. It’s worth noting at the outset of this review that the author, Katelyn Beaty, is a Christian working in publishing. Apart from that, I don’t know her, though I’ve followed her on Twitter long enough to blag a review copy of this book. This is a book that every Christian leader – and especially younger leaders, or folk aspiring to be leaders – needs to read, or at least be aware of. This is a book about a lot of things – to the subtitle’s ‘personas, platforms and prof ..read more

Don’t do it. Unless – and if you are reading this in English it is extremely unlikely – you are being physically persecuted by the government of your country and need to resist. Like under the Nazis.  That thought is barely a tweet, but it goes to something I’ve been pondering for a while.  I don’t know if it’s my own small-scale experiences of powerful men (because it has been exclusively men) going behind the scenes and over my head when I’ve done (usually written) something they don’t like. Perhaps it’s because of the dangers of a culture of silence to breed anxiety and fear, as ..read more

Derek Morphew is a key Vineyard theologian, and presently supports movements and individuals alongside having oversight of Vineyard International Publishing (VIP). VIP is the publisher of this book, a short, readable but rich little monograph that brings the distinctive theological framework of the Vineyard movement(s) into conversation with one of the pressing cultural/theological questions of our time. Published back in 2015, it’s been sat on my shelf for too long, and I’m very glad I got round to reading it. This review will give an overview of the book, and then I’ll offer a par ..read more

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a bit of a fanboy of Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason and other Lies I’ve Loved, and also The Preacher’s Wife. Bowler is an Assistant professor of American religion at Duke Divinity School and this book Blessed was her first published back in 2013. Now it’s in paperback, and I managed to get a copy to review. I’m really glad I read this book and it’s been particularly poignant reading it in the year of COVID-19 and the 2020 USA presidential election. This is a fairly chunky academic book, around 300 pages including footnot ..read more

Ever since I ‘changed my mind’ on a few things, I’ve always been interested in finding one short-ish book that I can point to, and lend to people who I know disagree with me. On the issue of women in ministry, it’s either Lucy Peppiatt’s Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, Andrew Bartlett’s Men and  Women in Christ, or Eric Schumacher and Elyse Fitzpatrick’s Worthy as a conversation starter. On the broad and complex issue(s) of the Holy Spirit, particularly in terms of God’s activity today, it’s been less easy to do that. This book, though (which is, embarassingly ..read more

One of the perks of being interested in a) what God is doing and b) what God has done, whilst also c) reading books, is that occasionally you get fun opportunities. In this case, I got to interview Paul Harcourt, the national Leader of New Wine, a movement of local churches with the vision to see God’s Kingdom come and change nations. Theologically and historically there are strong links/resonances between New Wine and the Vineyard movement, of which I am but one small part. Last year, New Wine celebrated 30 years of summer conferences, and rather than just ignoring it, they collected some of ..read more

Of the making of books about the Coronavirus Crisis, readers could be forgiven for saying that there is no end. We’ve had a short book from John Lennox, a slightly longer book from John Piper, a very long book with lots of helpful angles from a range of great people, and now another short book, from Tom Wright. Wright caused a bit of a kerfuffle with an article for TIME magazine, and this book represents something of an expansion of that, but to say this little book (around 88 pages) is *just* that would be to do it a disservice. For regular readers of Wright there will not be much to surpris ..read more

The authors, Anne and Gavin Calver, rightly write that “we are nothing and can do nothing without Him“. Personally, getting to the point of writing this book review has been an entertaining journey. I now work for IVP – and IVP has published, this, the theme book for a Spring Harvest that isn’t happening as planned (the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic has moved it, like so many other things, online). I was privileged to see the text in its early stages – and challenge a few things. But what I said to a colleague at the time of my first read through still stands: this is an inspiring, and engaging b ..read more